Nightly Excursions And Naive Neji
by kerrieleigh
Summary: Hinata has been vanishing at precisely 11:30 every night and Neji is determined to solve the mystery of where she goes. But his own naivety is more of a hindrance than a help... NaruHina. Oneshot.


Well... my first true honest-to-god oneshot! And technically my first attempt at romantic fluff.... or something close to it....

Errr this is just because i saw a NaruHina video on youtube and my inner demon made me read some NaruHina fics so i got into a really sappy lets-write-some-romantic-fluffy-trash mood even though i've never really been a fan of NaruHina....but then again i'm not really a fan of NaruSaku....or Naru-anyone.....odd....

Err anyhow enjoy! And review if you can be bothered!

:-)

* * *

Hyuuga Neji was tired. Exhausted in fact (well not really exhausted completely since he was still _somehow _managing to stand but he was at _least _very very _very _tired).

But he'd defeated jounin, chunin and even the occasional ANBU so, as a matter of Hyuuga pride, he wouldn't allow himself to succumb to sleep. Not until he completed his own self-appointed mission and worked out where his cousin Hinata had been disappearing to every night for the past fortnight.

Sure, upon first thought, the mission hadn't seemed that difficult. Just stay awake, lie in wait for Hinata, and then follow her. Simple.

Only things hadn't gone exactly to plan. Firstly he'd been called away on an emergency mission at about seven that morning and had only managed to return at half nine that night. He'd been planning to catch at least an hours sleep before he put his plan in action (the thought that he could've just rearranged his plan for the next night didn't even occur to him) but by the time he'd showered, groomed, dressed, cleaned his weapons, sharpened his kunai and reorganized his shinobi gear ready for the next mission it was already half ten and he didn't want to risk giving in to sleep and missing Hinata.

Therefore, of course with the reasoning used above still valid, Hyuuga Neji was _exhausted_. He was actually pretty surprised he hadn't collapsed in a heap where he was stood. Though he probably really wasn't that surprised since Hyuuga dignity would never allow him to simply collapse like some poorly trained genin on guard duty. It was truly amazing what a Hyuuga's sense of pride and dignity could get them to endure sometimes (studies have been done into this and had to be brought to a halt after five years of research when it reached the point where the studied Hyuuga wouldn't pull a three-inch nail from his backside simply because it would be undignified to do so when being observed (just for clarification the observer was a one week old baby who had yet to fully develop her eyesight passed how far her arms could stretch)).

Anyhow, waste-of-tax-payers-money-studies and stubborn Hyuuga's aside, Neji was stood in his room with his byakugan fixed on the hallway beyond (he wouldn't dream of looking straight into Hinata's room – not only because she was a main branch family member and that would be breaching protocol but also because she was a _girl _and who knows what manner of things she was getting up to in there?).

At eleven thirty on the dot the almost silent sound of tiptoeing feet on the polished beech floor of the hallway reached Neji's eager ears and he allowed himself a brief smile. Fortunately, from what he could see using his dojutsu (which was basically just about everything since the byukagen only has one tiny blind spot at the back of the head), Hinata hadn't bothered to use her own eyes to scout ahead for watchers; confident in the knowledge that even the clan elders retired by eleven each night.

Neji watched her leave the compound with a strange feeling of excitement bubbling within him. It was close to the feeling he got when he was tracking someone on a mission except he didn't have irritating little details, like the number of kunai left in his pouch and what jutsu's he could currently perform to maximum efficiency, fogging his brain and distracting him from the sheer delighted feeling of the _hunt_.

When Hinata was one street away from the compound Neji felt it was reasonably safe to start part two of his plan and crept from the darkness of his room and began to follow her. Together (though not in the literal sense since the two Hyuuga's were always at least two streets away from one another) they headed outwards towards the village walls. Neji was beginning to worry that his cousin was heading towards the village gates when she took a turn which set his nerves back in place. He knew from walking the route multiple times himself that the only place she could be heading was the training grounds at the very edge of the village.

Here he had a minor dilemma. The only reason he could think of for Hinata going to the training grounds was if she was planning to do some late night training. However this would most likely involve her activating her byukugen consequently making it impossible for Neji to sneak up and observe her.

Then again if Hinata was sneaking to the training ground there really wasn't a need for him to spy on her since the only thing she could be doing was training. So, technically, the mystery was solved. He now knew why and where Hinata was sneaking to in the middle of the night.

Neji was about to turn for home and his oh-so-comfortable bed when his byakugen picked up something which smashed his theory (or at least the majority of his theory) to pieces.

There was someone else in the training ground. Someone so completely unexpected it made Neji's eyes widen in shock (an astounding feat for a Hyuuga – they were almost as emotionless as Uchiha's).

Now there was no question about Neji returning to the compound. He couldn't until he'd found out what Hinata and the other person were doing in the training grounds. He still would've liked to think they were training but doubts began to gnaw at his mind.

These gnaws quickly turned into hefty bites and soon he was striding confidently towards the training grounds, absently preparing an excuse ready for if he was caught. His byakugen was still activated and he was only mildly surprised (after all he had used his bloodline limit often in the mission) when he ran out of chakra in his eye area. He pondered reactivating the bloodline limit since he could probably use it for at least another twenty minutes without collapsing from chakra exhaustion but decided that it wasn't really worth the risk. Subsequently Neji continued his mission with the eyes and optic range of any other jounin level shinobi.

Minutes later he was moving stealthily through the shrubbery around the edges of the training area. Quiet voices drifted on the wind to him and he frowned, trying to pick out what they were saying. When this proved fruitless he slinked forward even further until he was peeking through a gap in the leaves at the wide grassy space that was the training ground.

In the centre of the spacious area were stood Hinata and none other than Uzumaki Naruto. Neji was relieved to see that they _were _actually training (though he couldn't really work out why he was relieved. It's not like they could be doing anything else alone together in the middle of the night in an empty training ground, right?).

They were both stood in fighting stances and Neji watched as they silently began to spar in taijutsu, slowly gaining speed until their movements were almost blurs. They parried and blocked in a strangely hypnotic dance – made strange because Naruto was barely average at taijutsu and yet managed to block Hinata's practised strikes.

This didn't last long though. Neji couldn't be sure if Naruto was too slow or if Hinata was too quick but Naruto was holding his shoulder where the small hands of his cousin had hit and was grimacing.

"A-ah Naruto-kun!" Neji could easily hear the distress in Hinata's voice from his hiding place, "I'm s-sorry for hurting y-you!"

"Don't be ridiculous Hinata-chan. We're sparring. One of us is bound to get hurt by the other. And what did I tell you about stuttering?"

"I-I'm sorry Naruto-kun," Hinata replied, blushing.

"It's okay!" Naruto said, beaming encouragingly, "Stop apologizing Hinata-chan! Are you ready for round two?"

"Yes Naruto-kun."

Neji watched them spar for a further thirty minutes before he decided that his bed sounded much more comfortable than the bush within which he was currently perched. So, shooting one last look at the sparring shinobi, he tiptoed through the undergrowth and headed towards the Hyuuga compound, determined to ask Hinata about her strange training habits in the morning.

At the training ground Hinata mumbled "He's gone," and Naruto stopped mid-strike.

Naruto grinned at the suddenly blushing girl stood in front of him. "About time Hinata-chan," he said, leaning forward to wrap his arms gently around the Hyuuga.

"Did I really hurt you Naruto-kun?"

"Yes, you did, because you're an amazing shinobi," Naruto replied immediately and Hinata blushed.

"T-thank you Naruto-kun."

"You're welcome," he murmured as he leaned down to capture her lips.

* * *

So...err....that's it! The ending is very anticlimatic, but i wasn't really building tension or anything so i suppose it doesn't really matter....

Hope you enjoyed that and if you're reading my Meeting Naruto fic well.....i'll update soon?.....yeah probably...maybe.... anyhow if your not reading MN you can check it out if you want....personally i think its nothing special but some people seem to disagree....

Review if you can be bothered!

ja ne xx

(ps...does anyone want me to post the first chapter of the fic i'm probably going to write at the end of MN? It's already done - though terribly short)


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